A Review of Robert Darnton’s “The Case For Books: Past, Present, and Future”

Posted by Laila Kaz on
Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 4:22 pm

I came across Robert Darnton’s beautifully articulated essay collection, The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future (2009), while looking for a book to review for class. Darnton’s book intrigued me from the first glance. Aside from the effective title, its warmly designed, aptly metaphorical cover drew me in, inviting me to flip through its pages. This is an experience that is unlikely to be matched by a digitized copy downloaded via the Internet, to be read on an electronic device.

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Darnton is a former Princeton University professor, the current director of the Harvard University Library, and a respected historian. As such, he is admittedly an “old-fashioned, ultra-bookish” (p. 40) scholar with a love for rare book rooms. However, as is evident from his essay collection, written over several years, the historian’s love for books has not blinded him to the onset of the digital media revolution. He makes his case for the “printed word” (p. vii) while appreciating the value of wide accessibility of digitized books via the Internet.

These are trying times for the world of book publishing. Even as I write this review, a battle over e-book pricing is taking place between two corporate giants. The largest online retailer of books, Amazon.com, has at least temporarily stopped selling books by Macmillan, one of the largest publishers of English language books. St. Martin’s Press; Picador; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; and Scientific American are all divisions of Macmillan. The effect of this conflict on books, readers and authors remains to be seen. But it underscores the current debate over the future of paper books vs. e-books.

The father of media studies, Marshall McLuhan, described all media as “extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment” (“The Playboy Interview; Marshall McLuhan,” March 1969). Perhaps no other medium of communication fits this description better than the printed book. As Darnton puts it:

Consider the book … it has proven to be a marvelous machine — great for packaging information, convenient to thumb through, comfortable to curl up with, superb for storage, and remarkably resistant to damage. It does not need to be upgraded or downloaded, accessed or booted, plugged into circuits or extracted from webs. Its design makes it a delight to the eye. Its shape makes it a pleasure to hold in the hand. And its handiness has made it the basic tool of learning for thousands of years, even when it had to be unrolled to be read … long before Alexander the Great founded the library of Alexandria in 332 BC. (p. 68)

Aside from the emotional and historical values attached to the book, Darnton offers many logical arguments to underscore the importance of paper books and why they are likely not going away anytime soon. For example, he explains that there are about 543 million volumes in the American research libraries; Google’s initial goal is set at digitizing 15 million. Even if Google manages to digitize 90 percent of the books in the entire US, the 10 percent that are missed may contain information of value for many. And what of the books published in the rest of the world?

In another chapter, Darnton describes a past frenzy to save the libraries from a “spectacular space cries” (pp. 115-25). Apparently, during the period of roughly 1950 to the 1980s, some of the largest libraries in America replaced millions of books and old newspapers with microfilm. The result was a great loss because as it turned out microfilm did not last long. It developed many defects and became illegible (p. 112).

Perhaps the greatest value of the e-book is not in replacing the printed book, but in extending its power to spread knowledge.

Darnton acknowledges McLuhan’s theories, the Memex (an electro-mechanical desk that was meant to contain libraries of books on microfilm), and the libraries’ past frenzy to replace books with microfilm. Add the Internet and the e-book readers of today, and the question becomes one that we have been pondering for over 70 years: Is technology about to replace the book? Before we learn the answer, the medium of ink on paper may well outlast many more technological innovations. Its message continues to shape our world.

The Case for Books: Past, Present, and Future
By Robert Darnton, 220pp.
PublicAffairs, New York, 2009

Laila Kazmi is a freelance writer and a graduate student in the MCDM program.

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7 Comments, Comment or Ping

lailakaz

Some other E-book projects:

Hathi Trust, A shared digital repository, http://www.hathitrust.org – this one seems to be a huge project, a cooperation between university libraries and they are digitizing both public domain as well as copyrighted books. I had never heard of them before doing the research for this review.

Some public domain books:

Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org
The Online Books Page, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/

Feb 8th, 2010
Cheryl Lowry

Laila,

Thanks for this article, I am very interested in this topic– I’d like to explore it in the MCDM and will be sure to include this book in my research.

Feb 8th, 2010
lailakaz

Cheryl, thank you for the note. Yes, great book. He gives you a lot to think about when considering the future of physical books.

Feb 9th, 2010
jeffhora

Nice review, Laila.

Many who know me know that I am a vocal advocate of the Amazon Kindle and electronic content. However, I did actually read books before the Kindle came along! I still have a VERY LARGE number of volumes, purchased over the years, about half of which I still haven’t read, but intend to. I agree that e-reader content is best seen and understood as extending the existing businesses, to the degree that they continue to publish physical media. It is easier and cheaper to get content distributed electronically, but precious few own e-readers or even are willing to read anything longer than an article on their computer screens, compared to the size of the literate public who have access in some way to a book.

The serendipitous activity of wandering through the stacks at a large library or used bookstore and stumbling across an item of interest is difficult to replicate online. There are recommendation engines, referrals from friends, colleagues and sites, and the bibliographies at the end of other books and articles, but figuratively stumbling onto something previously unconsidered is something that seems can best be done in the physical world. This is why I don’t fear for the fate of books. That act of potential inspiration is unrepeatable virtually.

Feb 26th, 2010
Cheryl

Wanted to add a comment regarding the example of microfilm– microfilm is a wonderful case study of the future potential ramifications of efforts to convert book content to any particular format of the hour. The shelf life of formats is short – all of us have content we’ve produced ourselves that is marooned on discs or tapes that we can no longer easily retrieve because the technology is deceased. At the time, whatever that format was seemed universal, but it faded from common use within a brief window of time. I remember when microfilm was a waning standard in libraries, and unlike book or magazine content, you had to go to a restricted part of the library, learn how to use the readers, and search in inscrutable drawers of film, without the easy visual markers of text. More often than not, kids doing research projects just skipped the hassle, and went straight to the stacks. The libraries may have saved some square footage on content storage, but the content was not easier to use– it was harder. Today’s digital formats churn constantly, in a frantic cycle of business competition and trends. It makes me nervous to think we’re on the cusp of dumping all of our collective information into one or more of them without looking back.

Mar 1st, 2010
Derek Belt

This is a great review. More than anything, I just glad someone’s out there championing books. I’ve been a writer since I was a child and have enjoyed reading books for as long as I can remember (well, maybe not in some of my undergrad courses). To me, there’s something special about holding a book in your hand and flipping through the pages. I enjoy getting closer to the end and blazing toward the finish line as fast I can. Lord of the Rings. The Bourne Identity. Harry Potter. These are stories and characters I lived with and loved, and it had everything to do with the physical book I held in my hands.

I am in this program, however, so you know I’m all for the digital revolution that’s taking place. I understand the role Kindle and other e-readers will play in our world moving forward, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do. I just hope we don’t lose sight of the books we know and love. The libraries we need. The bookstores we frequent. This is a part of our culture, and it would be a real shame if we lost it for good. It’s along the same lines of the problems facing the newspaper industry. There’s something special about reading the newspaper, too. But that hasn’t stopped users from flocking to the Web for free content. The difference here is that e-books won’t be free. They might be cheaper than hardback books, but I think even the publishers will begin to drop prices if e-books become a real threat. They’re going to have to.

Bottom line – change is coming. But what kind of change is still up for debate. It’s going to alter the game forever, but my hope is that it doesn’t completely eradicate the books I love. Will there be room for both mediums in the future? My fingers are crossed.

Mar 7th, 2010
Joanna Mullally

This article was thought provoking. I, like some of the other commenters find that something is lost when reading an e-book vs. a stack of bound paper. When reading longer works, especially Victorian novels where the plot slowly builds for about 300 pages and flames through the remaining 100, its gratifying to physically see the journey you’ve undertaken in the form of read pages. Further, I have to agree with William Germano’ argument in What Are Books Good For? (The Chronicle Review, Sept. 26, 2010), that a collection of books serves as an autobiography of sorts… that “Little else can demonstrate as clearly as a shelf of books (or possibly a refrigerator) who we are or imagine ourselves to be…. Great and fancy libraries astound us, but it’s the personal library where a scholar’s serious work begins. Lose the personal library, and we become less than we are.” Good books become good friends that mark various periods of our lives; it’s sentimental to see your changing fancies stacked neatly in front of you.

Oct 28th, 2010